Magic
by mmok
Summary: AU. At ten in the morning I was standing behind the counter of the wooden table inside a cozy café owned by me for three years now. My hands skillfully cleaning the cup of glass with a white cloth, and some old classic jazz filling in the atmosphere, I shared my first love story with a client who was more than a simple customer. 8027. One-shot.


**Magic**

/ˈmadʒɪk/

the power of apparently influencing events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.

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"Tell me sir, how was your first love?" His sharp brown eyes locked with his client's, in an act of surprise before composing himself.

The man was a regular here, always came at 9 sharp in the morning for a cup of blend coffee, with one spoonful of milk and two of sugar.

As he held a cup of glass with one hand and the other cleaned it with practiced ease, he reminisced those long ago years, when he was only a young teenager hoping for too much.

"Well... It all started like this..."

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_The moment I laid eyes on a particular brunet, all I could think was how that this would be the seventh year that we'll be classmates._

_One would think that knowing each other for such a long time, we would have established some kind of relaxing and honest relationship between us because chances like these weren't exactly common, but the thing is, me and that particular brunet couldn't even be considered acquaintances. Strangers but not so much._

_The brunet wasn't anyone special. It may be a cruel thought, but it was simply the only thing that I could use to describe him without being exactly mean._

_Didn't have extraordinary grades or good ones to begin with, wasn't talented in any kind of sport, a constant victim of bullying and someone even made a stupid nickname for him._

_I may have thought about helping him, wondering if he would feel grateful if I saved him from some bullies, but despite my otherwise lax nature, I wasn't someone so kind._

_I hated the world._

_I hated everyone, the world and everything that was remotely fake._

_That was of course, including me._

_Everyday I would wake up with a frown, I would walk to the mirror and stare at my reflection. Lifting my lips upwards I would attempt to smile, but it wouldn't come out as I expected. Disgusted I would stare at my reflection, who would portray my expression and ask "Who the fuck are you." And I may be going crazy or delusional even, but I saw those lips of mine moving without my consent, mocking and disdaining. "You." _

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"Had identity issues, huh." His client pointed out humorously. As he kept on rubbing the cup of glass, his eyes found themselves staring at his amplified reflection, lips pulling in a nostalgic small simper.

"I was young then. Immature and too smug for my own life's good."

"I've heard that every youngster would go through a similar phase. You're making me feel bad here, looking like your dog has been run by a car." His client said somewhat uncomfortable, to which he apologized by offering a cup of coffee. Just like how the other liked.

"Nah. Not every single one."

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_"Takechi. We're counting on you for the next tournament." I resisted the urge to snap at the best of my efforts, opting for offering a reassuringly fake smile._

_I hated tournaments. I hated competitions. I hated how everybody just gave me the hero treatment at this time of the year._

_I played baseball because I genuinely enjoyed it. Mother would often play with me when she was still breathing, and the least thing that I could do for her was to continue for the both of us._

_If it wasn't for that, then I would have quit long ago._

_"Dame-Tsuna fell again! He has stained the hallways with his dame-ness." Despite the overly childish insult, I felt my patience drain to the very last drop in a matter of seconds._

_That day I hadn't woken up with the best of my moods - not that it was uncommon as of lately - and for an incomprehensible reason that I couldn't still grasp due to my lack of common sense, I also felt ridiculed._

_By the time that I came to the brunet's side however, the bully was long gone and some passerby's were throwing me lingering glances._

_I was more focused on the boy in front of me to notice them, the sprawled out body and face facing down. I was sure that whatever thing the bully may have done to cause the brunet's fall, wasn't nearly enough to knock him out, so I came quickly into the conclusion that he intended to stay like that. I actually had the tact to not interrupt his moment of rare peace._

_Knowing that the moment that I'll step into the classroom I would meet with the countless faces that I loathed so much, I decided to rest beside the brunet, until the very moment that he got up when the ground didn't seem so inviting anymore._

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"I would take a wild guess and say that the brunet thanked you." He laughed.

"That couldn't be further from the truth." He opened his eyes and met with his client's brown ones, his hands still cleaning the cup that has been present ever since the start of their little unspoken story-telling.

"That couldn't be further from the truth."

_He glared at me intensively, outraged at something that I couldn't understand for the love of my life and stalked out, heading to what I supposed to be the roof. _

_I remained frozen in place, thoughts swirling together before I finally let out a laugh of pity at myself. I felt genuinely happy, no matter how brief it was._

_That glare, intense and almost killing intent emitting out, has been by far, the truer look that I had received in this school._

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_The boy's glare puzzled me, though._

_Having had an almost acquaintance relationship with the brunet for seven years now, one thing I knew was that he wasn't violent, or cranky in nature. But that glare has felt far too real, to be brushed aside as a mere thought of my head that desired for some truth, too similar to when I looked myself in the mirror._

_From that day on I watched him closely. From days to weeks, weeks to months I watched the brunet with discreet eyes. Stealthiness came to me almost naturally, like a second nature of some sorts._

_And god, was I surprised._

_The brunet was far more than he let on... well, by what I have seen he didn't in any way try to hide it, but me and everyone else had just been too blind to what was shown before our eyes. While he still scored last in tests, I could tell that the brunet had this strange intellect in him, waiting for the right time to awake and consequently, taking the world in a completely chaotic blast. I was confident that he wasn't aware of that hidden intellect of his, by the way he struggled in scribbling notes down and keeping up with the teacher. In sports he was still the last to finish, but I've seen him running away from bullies, and I would be damned if I didn't call that raw potential._

_And just like some supernatural force pulling us together, this curiosity of mine turned into something more over the time that I would witness his uncanny kindness, delectable chocolate eyes behind those soft bangs, and more and more did I wake up every day with the desire of hurrying up to school._

_I was proud to say, that the mirror of my room, was slowly but surely, accumulating dust over the crystalline surface._

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"Didn't take you as one with those kind of fetishes." Finally putting the cup of glass down in its rightful place, his eyes peered up and laughed when he saw the slightly cautious expression. The laughs came around easier than before, no more carrying that heavy pent up frustration.

"Certainly not. But you know, love is an exception."

"It surely seems so." His client said with a sympathizing smile. Taking out a rectangular box from his personal affairs' drawer, his hands chose in total five different types of snacks, before presenting them to the client on a cozy round plate.

"Making sure that I stick around, aren't you."

"Oh, you will stick around. It's merely retribution." The man before him grabbed an almond biscuit, took a bite and hm-ed in clear satisfaction.

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_When the teacher gave us an assignment, I internally groaned in response. But when he talked more specifically about the topic, something about writing a poem for our most important person, despite the work that it would require from me, I actually didn't mind._

_Naturally, I wrote about my dad. He has not been himself as of lately, less lively, less bright, and if I caught a glimpse of guilt every time I passed by him, then I surely didn't say anything. But it wasn't because I didn't care. Quite the contrary. If my mother made me unable on quitting baseball, then my dad made me unable to jump out from my room's window every time I felt the urge to._

_He was the thing that held me in place, and I frankly didn't trust my mouth enough to let it the freedom to speak words that I may come to regret._

_I would never forget the tears that sprang out, continuously hitting the piece of cheap paper between his hands, as if holding a new born child._

_But I had done some extra work. Besides the poem that I wrote for my dad, I surprisingly managed to squint some words for another one, intended much predictably, for the brunet._

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"To my surprise though, he cried." His lips settled themselves in a guilty simper, memories of that fateful day replaying vividly in a non stop motion. His company stayed silent, taking small bites of a chocolate biscuit as he listened attentively. After the second bite, the slender man took a sip from his refilled coffee, rested his elbows on the table, and placed his chin gently on his palms.

"What did you write in that poem." He closed his eyes, allowing a small smirk to take over his features.

"Oh. Simple things. I wrote about how much he meant to me, and the manner that his eyes resembled my mother's."

"That's awfully simplistic." Refilling the cup with coffee, he chuckled at his words.

"It was enough to make him cry from happiness."

_"This is the first time... that someone actually_ _cared for me. Really I-I'm so so sooo happy right now!"_

"So all ended well?" He shook his head.

"He was far too broken to be healed with such simple words." The man only hm-ed in response.

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_It was when I entered in an argument with my father, that I felt for the second time in my life, the fear of losing something precious just by the slip of my hands. I didn't even know what we were fighting about, probably something stupid, since I've always had this uncanny talent to do something stupid in the worst times._

_So when I was sitting with cold sweat on a chair from an eerily familiar place, a place that I've been only once and that had been six years ago, without even the certainty that my father and only family would come out safe and sound this time, I knew that I had done a very stupid thing._

_Witnessing my own father spazzing uncontrollably and clutching his chest with a trembling hand had been an earth-shattering sight, seeing him collapse after a regretful gaze I felt my world crumbling down, and with the possibility of him disappearing forever right ahead of me... I just knew that not even a million years worth of apologies and promises_ _would suffice to bring him back to normal again._

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A finger tracing the wood lines of the table, he reminisced the sad memories while blocking his eyes with another, the guilt and anxiety that he felt that time still haunting him.

When his client silently slid a tea biscuit on a neat napkin right beneath his face and for his eyes to see, his nose crinkled and he resisted the urge to cry.

It would be unsightly after all.

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_And as I stood on the edge of the fence of the school with a blank and abandoned gaze, strangely I didn't feel any kind fear, as I looked down to the bustling grounds of the school._

_My father was in a coma, and without my lash holding me down to this world, I didn't know my place anymore. With my father in a state of death but barely living, I couldn't find the courage to face everyday and having the possibility of receiving a call from the hospital with a fake somber voice telling me that I just lost my one and only father._

_People were gathered behind me. I could hear many of their shouts and pleas for me to stop._

_They didn't even dare to be less than five meters from me._

_And as I breathed in I felt unusually calm, things perceptively clear. If death situations were filled with_ _such ominous peace, then maybe they weren't that bad._

_I turned my head sidewards when I felt someone climbing the fence, and as I expected, it was the face of a petit brunet with almost too knowing eyes._

_I knew that he would be the only one to dare come here, after all._

_"This world... you know, I quite despise it." But my companion didn't utter a word. I smiled conceding, a slight sigh of defeat coming out of my mouth._

_"If you jump, I'll jump too." I became angry._

_"Don't fucking play guilty with me here. If you expected to be able to stop me because of my feelings for you so that you could play the hero and all_ _that shit, then I'm sorry to break to you, but I already stopped hoping for a long time now." And when the brunet didn't even react to my words, and regarded the sky with sad eyes, I jumped._

_And I was surprised, when the moment I extended my leg out to end it all, the other had already jumped._

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"Wanted attention, huh." He rubbed the nape of his neck in embarrassment. Even if the other's voice didn't sound judgmental, it has been just like he said.

"I was very, very, _very_ immature back then." The man chuckled and took the cup of coffee to his lips.

And while his companion played with the cuff of the ivory cylindric chalice, a ghost of a smile lingered on the other's lips.

"He jumped with you."

"He did." The man proceeded to stare at the half-empty brown liquid with unknown interest, before drinking it all in one go.

"How are you still alive, by the way." He smiled at the memory. Even if he tried to deny it, he had felt truthfully relieved when he found out that he was still breathing and fine.

"He called 911 beforehand and they installed the cushion while I talked with him."

_His eyes were transfixed in the sky above him with shocked and alleviated? eyes. He was breathing hard, the earlier sensation of falling from a four story building still running vividly in his veins._

_Beside him laid the brunet, clearly not_ _much better._

_"I told you that I would jump."_

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_I would go to the hospital every day since then._

_Telling my dad about my everyday life, as if he had always been there and listening to me._

_But I didn't go there alone._

_More than often people would see me walking down the hospital grounds with a brunet at my side, nervous and slightly fidgeting. No one would believe that he jumped off of a building proud and fearless just a few days ago, but I did because I was there._

_He was the one who saved me, put me back on my lash, and stayed until he was sure that I wouldn't escape again._

_If my dad was the one who bound me to this hateful world, then he was the one who guided me through it. Bright and fickle, flying but still in a approachable distance._

_I woke up one day determined, ran down the stairs to fetch a hammer, went back to my room, and watched with a grin as my mirror shattered in tiny thousand pieces._

_It was just like freeing myself from an error, moving on from a regret, and the smiles came to me easier than before. But of course, it only_ _happened with the presence of a certain brown-eyed brunet nearby_.

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"What about your father?" He didn't bother to hide his grin.

"Scolded me three months ago when I went to fetch him from the hospital."

"That's good." And from the corner of his eyes, he saw the man smiling in elation.

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_I've confessed to the brunet three times._

_The first was when I gave him the poem. He cried, smiled like a sun and rejected me with tender and sad words._

_The second time was when he saved me from doing another stupid thing._

_I remember with nostalgia, how I breathed those three words out of my mouth._

_We were still laying on the cushion, all I could see was the scorching sky above me and the presence of him next to me._

_Between breaths he told me words_ _that I wished to not be true, and despite the evident sadness that I felt afterwards, I couldn't help but to fall deeper for that petit brunet with caramel eyes._

_When we became something more than mere_ _acquaintances, I swore to not confess again, contenting myself with the relationship that we had currently at that time._

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As I cleaned another glass with swiftness only attained over time, my client twirled the cup of coffee around for a few moments, gaze unfocused.

"He was moving away. I learnt from him that he had abusive parents, and of course, I couldn't let that happen." The man closed his eyes fondly.

"Wanted to look cool, huh." He chuckled.

"Maybe... But I had never been so furious. In short, all ended well, and he had to move in with a distant relative." He smiled melancholically. "In Italy."

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_And as I panted when I finally found him in the vast sea of people in the airport, with bags in hand and his grandfather not too far, I almost cried._

_I absentmindedly noticed the absence of the grandfather right afterwards, allowing my mouth for the first time, the liberty to say whatever it wanted._

_"It was like magic you know." I said between breaths. "How you came into my life after such a long time, making me feel pity for myself and never saying a word..." By that point I grinned, a truthful sincere grin, one that I had practiced with much difficulty last night and now it came to me almost effortlessly. "It was truly, like magic." _

_I steadied myself quickly, I couldn't afford letting the other the chance to intervene. I didn't believe in myself to be able to hold myself if it happened._

_"You see, I've never thought that I would be able to love something so dearly besides my parents... and you just proved me wrong." I brought up my hand, grin still present, and put my thumb right over my chest._

_"You made my heart go all BATHUMP BATHUMP real fast! They were like... racing cars! Real fast racing cars!" My words and attitude were childish, revealing more of my true personality comparing to the mask that I wore outside. I felt infinitely_ _great, when I finally lowered my guard and just did whatever I felt like to._

_"And then, every time that you looked at me my ears would go all TCHOO TCHOO, hahaha you know, like a train." And when my vision blurred and watered, the brunet had the tact to not mention it._

_"And when I saw you smile my body would go all KAPOW! Like a superhero. You know, like KAPOW!" I lost my grin by then._

_I tried to steady it, but all that came out was a poor excuse of a wobbly smile._

_"And when you saved_ _me? Yeah, my eyes were all SPLASH SPLASH because you saved me! I mean, how cool is that? You were awesome back then by the way. Definitely cool."_

_"You know that first time that you brought lunch for me? My mouth only did MUNCH MUNCH because I was happy. I was too happy and just a little bit too hopeful, you know."_

_"And Tsuna..." I took a deep breath and looked at him in the eyes. When I saw the equally watering gaze I smiled, and whispered solemnly "It was truly like magic."_

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Closing his eyes in remembrance, he heard the sound of glass connecting with the table.

"And?"

"He told me to wait for him." He looked up to the man, who had once again poised his chin on interlaced fingers.

"For how long you waited?" He flapped the white cloth on the table without warning.

"Ten years and still counting." He said in an attempt of bitterness, but as he expected, it failed terribly in that factor.

"That long? How are you sure that he will come back?" At that he leered cheekily, playing along, and feigning ignorance.

"Oh, I don't know. But you would certainly know more than me." And as the man didn't even faze or showed an ounce of panic, he knew that the other had grown out of his previous bashful shell.

"I certainly would, wouldn't I, Takeshi." The man thought that he wouldn't notice.

True, he's rather slow in these kind of things, but not even he could miss the slight appreciative glances, the eyes that went from doe to intelligent narrowed, and the thin body that went to attractive slender. The hair remained though. The same fluffy chocolate hair and law defying as ever. How could he expect him to not notice those changes and similarities?

"You certainly would, Tsuna." His companion slightly smirked, got up from his seat and came nearer.

"You know that poem? I still have it with me." When the other said that, he felt incredibly happy. If he was his younger self, then he was sure that he would have shouted or jumped or cried even.

But he has changed too. Grown past that perilous past, moved on from his broken box and regarded the world in a different manner.

So he contented himself with a small, delighted simper. Just enough for the other to notice.

"I found some grammar errors in it... Would you mind checking it with me on a table for two, at that restaurant next to the Takesushi at eight o'clock sharp?" Oh god. How in the world did the shy and cute boy that he fell for at age 14, go to the smooth and handsome young man in front of him.

"You will have to do a lot more to have a date with me, Tsuna." But the other didn't panic. If anything he sounded amused and challenged, returning his humorous gaze.

"You waited ten years for me. I can definitely wait more." And as the man bid farewell, with an unexpected peak on his cheek, whispering something just beside his ear and putting way too much money on the counter, he stood there alone in the cozy café of his, blushing like he never did before, with the jazzy tune muffling the sound of his quickly bursting heart.

_"Magic is something you make, to happen."_

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**Disclaimer: I don't own KHR. Quote not mine. Thanks for reading.**


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